‘Reading Rainbow’ reaches ‘The End.’

“Reading Rainbow,” the third longest-running program on PBS, eclipsed only by “Sesame Street” and “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood,” is signing off the air.

According to the NPR story, the show is ending because:

“… no one — not the station, not PBS, not the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — will put up the several hundred thousand dollars needed to renew the show’s broadcast rights … the funding crunch is partially to blame, but the decision to end Reading Rainbow can also be traced to a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming. The change started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration, he explains, which wanted to see a much heavier focus on the basic tools of reading — like phonics and spelling.

That’s terrible. “Reading Rainbow,” which features actor LeVar Burton and everyday children sharing their love of books, isn’t about instruction. It is about inspiration. And that’s pretty important.